New features assist people with vision and hearing impairments at Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum

[August 16, 2024] 

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum has introduced new features that make its greatest treasures more accessible to people with vision or hearing difficulties and provide additional information to all visitors.

The museum also unveiled a temporary exhibit about the history of two Jacksonville, Ill., schools that have served people with disabilities for more than 150 years: the Illinois School for the Visually Impaired and the Illinois School for the Deaf. The exhibit includes accessibility tools that, if they prove effective, may be incorporated into future museum exhibits.

“These steps are part of our Abe for All Initiative – a commitment to make the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum as accessible as possible so everyone can share in Lincoln’s life and legacy,” said ALPLM Executive Director Christina Shutt.

The museum displays its most important documents and artifacts in the Treasures Gallery, and within that gallery is a section set aside for the very best items, such as the Gettysburg Address or a scrap of cloth stained with Lincoln’s blood. This section has now been updated with digital panels that display additional photos and text related to the artifact in each case, provide Spanish translations, and let visitors share their opinion on a brief question. QR codes allow visitors to call up written or spoken information on their cell phones. One panel also offers a short video.

Meanwhile, a space devoted to rotating exhibits about Illinois history now features a display of photos and artifacts from the schools for the deaf and visually impaired. Both schools serve children from pre-kindergarten through high school. The School for the Deaf was founded in 1839, and the School for the Visually Impaired in 1849.

The display includes an array of communications devices used by the visually impaired or hard of hearing over the years, along with student art, a silver medal from the 1935 Deaflympic Games and an array of photos.

Panels in front of the exhibit offer information in braille, provide QR codes so people with visual impairments can get audio, and feature three-dimensional items for visitors to touch – a logo for one school and the mascot from the other.

“We want to thank both schools for their assistance, both in lending pieces of their fascinating history for the exhibit and in helping us make it something that even more visitors can enjoy. We hope to learn from it so we can make future exhibits more accessible, too,” said Lance Tawzer, director of exhibits and shows at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.

The exhibit will be open through Oct. 29.

The mission of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum is to inspire civic engagement through the diverse lens of Illinois history and share with the world the life and legacy of Abraham Lincoln. We pursue this mission through a combination of rigorous scholarship and high-tech showmanship built on the bedrock of the ALPLM’s unparalleled collection of historical materials – roughly 13 million items from all eras of Illinois history.

For more information, visit www.PresidentLincoln.illinois.gov.

[Christopher Wills (he/him/his)
Director of Communications
Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum]